Austerity policy being implemented in all gov’t departments: Ali Muhammad

ISLAMABAD, Jun 27 (APP):Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan on Saturday said that the government had fully embarked upon the agenda of observing austerity across all the government institutions and departments.

Speaking in National Assembly here, he said the Prime Minister Office saved 29 percent of its budget during the year 2019-20 as an amount of Rs 137 million out of total allocation of Rs 474 million had been returned.

Similarly, he said in 2018-19, Rs 454 million were allocated for Prime Minister House, out of which only Rs 304 million were utilized during the year.With respect to expenditures in Prime Minister House, the minister of state said that the expenditures were brought down from Rs 1.4 billion to Rs 670 million.He said numbers of employees which were 522 were reduced by half while numbers of vehicles were also brought down from 74 to 46.

Ali Muhammad Khan  said the Prime Minister lived in his own house in Bani Gala and unlike in the past there was no camp office of Prime Minister.He said former Prime Minister had declared his house at Raiwind Lahore as a camp house where all types of expenditures were paid from the government exchequer.

Giving details of expenditures incurred during visits of the heads of states to United Nations annual meeting, Ali Muhammad Khan said US$1.3 million were spent during the visit of former president Asif Ali Zardari to the UN, while $1.1 million were spent during visit of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Similarly he said during visit of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi visit, an amount of $500,000 was spent while Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit incurred only $162,000 from the national exchequer.

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